There are no roads to get to the Cree community of Whapmagoostui, Pakesso's home, or to Sarayaku, Eriberto' community. To both of them, you arrive by plane or by the river.

Arriving Sarayaku by plane one can see an emerald forest. It's that way because the people of Sarayaku fought to protect it from oil exploration. They won. But 20 minutes flight from Sarayaku, we can see the roads entering the forest and where there are roads, there are a lot of deforestation.
Sarayaku was offered...

It was such an honor to be welcomed into their home. Long conversations about ancient stories of the Sarayaku, ceremonies that started at around 03.00 am, walking into the forest to see them working on their patch of land were unforgettable moments.

When you listen to the forest you speak words of wisdom. When I listen to Eriberto it seems that I'm listening to the forest, the people, the streams, the animals, the water. He speaks with the soft voice of all of them in unison to d

Eriberto Benedicto Gualinga of the Sarayaku people is an award-winning filmmaker, photographer and musician whose lifework is to tell the political and social stories of his people as they face off against oil companies infringing on their territorial rights. Residing in the central Ecuadorian Amazon, the Sarayaku community comprises around 1,200 indigenous Kichwa people who boast one of the most successful histories of defending their land from resource extraction. Last year marked a new chapter in thei...

Each day, 80,000 acres of rainforest are destroyed and another 80,000 acres are degraded.
One and a half acres of rainforest are lost every second.
1.4 tons of high grade explosives were left on the Sarayaku’s land by the oil company.

Shamanism is an ancient form of spiritual healing and a way of life that dates back approximately 30,000 years. The teachings of shamanism are based on our connection with nature and the promotion of the well-being of all creation. Intrinsic aspects of sh

Some of the world’s most interesting oil and gas deposits are found in tropical rainforests. If you managed to catch Konnected.tv’s episode on the Sarayaku community in the Ecuadorean Amazon, you learned about a little village’s struggle to fend off

Besides the fact that the equator runs right through it, how much do you actually know about Ecuador? Bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west, Ecuador has four distinct and contrasting regions. The

Sarayaku (Kichwa for “river of corn”) is an Indigenous Ecuadorean tribe numbering 1,200 people. Their self-reliant way of life includes fishing, farming, hunting and more recently, ecotourism. Located in the heart of the Amazon, this small community m

If you showed up at a stranger’s house uninvited, you’d knock on the door to ask permission before entering, right? This allegory sums up nicely the basic human right known as FPIC: Free Prior and Informed Consent of Indigenous Peoples. It is one of t

Photo- We were invited to stop filming and join the circle to talk about Indigenous identity. They youth were very interested and curious about First Nations in Canada. Pakesso and Eli shared their experiences and the conversation was so emotional that f

Filming in the Andes of Peru was for me going back to land that nourished my roots, to the mountains that took care of my first steps and to the people who seeded my identity.
I was also going back to meet T